Living a More Purposeful Life One Cent at a Time

What My Pregnancy Cost So Far: Part 1

Being pregnant can be pricey. But how expensive are we talking? It’s something I wondered often when we first found out we were expecting, so I decided to keep a running tally of what we were spending, both on ourselves (OK, mostly me, but I’m the one doing the heavy lifting whose pants don’t fit) and Baby.

Doctor Visits – $394.33

Though we are both healthy and fairly young, Half Penny was deemed a high-risk pregnancy until we got the all-clear after 22 weeks. I was expecting to be walloped with medical bills given all the extra testing. We would have happily paid them all and then some to do what’s best for Baby, but fortunately, we haven’t had to do so.

Initially, I estimated my usual $20 copay for each doctor visit. After all, that’s what I pay for any other doctor visit, and there’s a giant sign in the reception area that says COPAY IS DUE AT TIME OF VISIT. So, at our first appointment, I signed myself in and forked over my credit card. The receptionist assured me that I don’t have a copay at any of these baby visits. Huh. That was my cue to call my insurance company and get the full scoop on what exactly is covered and by how much.

It turns out that everything done in office⸺from ultrasonds to blood work⸺is essentially bundled into one charge at the end of the pregnancy. You know, before the whopper of the hospital bill. However, when Half Penny got bigger, we had to have some more imaging done through an outside specialist. The out-of-pocket expense for the ultrasound clocked in at $373.87 and the doctor visit was $20.46. And to use the Mastercard cliche, finding out that HP was no longer considered high risk was priceless.

My parents paid $373 for this photo shoot, and I put my arms and my legs in the air.

Maternity Gear – $382.65

I was really fortunate to have a coworker lend me about ten different maternity tops in a variety of solid colors. I’ve been mixing and matching them all throughout pregnancy. She also lent me her Belly Band, which is an excellent idea in theory. You can wear your regular pants for all nine months. Unless you’re like me and you discover that while Belly Bands forgive a growing stomach, there isn’t much they can do for anything else that also expands.

As a result, I’ve had to pick up $382.65 worth of maternity gear. That price includes everything from two pairs of work pants and two pairs of jeans to a few dresses and a new pair of pajamas. I could have spent less, but I could have spent much, much more. To say this has been a lesson in capsule wardrobes would be the ultimate understatement.

Household Items – $361

In an effort to act my age, I’ve sworn off fabric softener like a good millennial. While we did already use more eco-friendly detergents, I still found myself reaching for that blue bottle. Not anymore. $23 at Bed Bath and Beyond later, and I became the proud owner of Woolzies, six wool dryer balls, that will either mimic my favorite fabric softener or swindle me out of money. So far, so soft!

I also popped for a six-inch memory foam mattress topper when every inch of my body started to hurt. No pillow fortress configuration cut it, so I enlisted help from the fine people at Serta for $153.

And while it turns out we were perfectly happy with potentially poisoning ourselves for the past four years, I insisted we have our radon pump retested. It set us back $185, and the levels were so low that the inspector actually laughed. But now I don’t have to worry about growing a fluorescent supervillain baby.

Baby Gear – $106.88

It takes a village to raise a baby and did our village turn out for this kiddo. Our baby gear expenses are incredibly low because we were gifted so much. At first, I tried to eschew the notion of a shower entirely, but after realizing how offended my family got and remembering that I shouldn’t tell people how to spend their money, I obliged.

We registered for something like $1400 worth of items. We received all of it plus the generous offers of hand-me-downs and gently used baby gear. How’s that for a heaping of kindness and privilege?

I’ve also been saving every $10 off $10 or more purchase coupon I come across since I found out I was expecting. A few friends promised that we’d be gifted with a deluge of newborn to 3-month onesies, and they weren’t wrong. With that tip in mind, I’ve been stockpiling 6-12 month onesies, sleepers, and burp cloths. I’ve scored upwards of 30 baby items for $16.57 thanks to strategic shopping.

We also spent another $70.31 on an area rug and used an Amazon gift card that I got as a Christmas gift to bring down the price of nursery decals to $20. This seems like a real bargain, but the decals still aren’t on the wall yet. When I post Part 2, I might have to include the cost of marriage counseling.

Totaling It Up

To date, it’s cost us $1244.86 to be pregnant and to get ready for Half Penny’s debut. It’s true that when I was having a really rough time, I busted our grocery budget more than once. And there are other expenses that I didn’t chronicle because they fit within our regular budget. $10 prenatal vitamins, $1.49 bags of Lemonheads, and 50¢ emergency McDonald’s ice cream cones (in case you were wondering what constitutes an emergency, it’s whenever I see a McDonald’s drive-thru). We’ve gotten off fairly easy thus far. But you know what they say⸺the biggest bills are yet to come.

Second Note – It is not lost on either Mr. P or me how fortunate we are to have a healthy baby on the way and to have dodged the incredible expense and heartache of IVF. If you are in that situation, you’re in our thoughts.

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18 Comments

I think you’re doing pretty well so far. The onset of parenthood can cause the most frugal person to momentarily lose their mind and go on a spending spree, but you’ve kept it under control and scrimped where it made sense. While still living life: McDonalds. I love your humor, keep it up.

I’m thinking that the first week home from the hospital might have me singing a dramatically less frugal tune, so we’re trying to save now while saner (and more rested) minds prevail. Hopefully, my humor sticks around. Thanks for stopping by, Barnaby!

You’ve done really well. That post-hospital bill would nag at me though. I was kinda glad that my OB just charged us a flat $1000 up front, which we paid early (they offered an installment plan, but we didn’t need to do that.)

I was so silly about clothes before Little Bit was born. I got awfully cute stuff…but it was summer and she just needed diapers, t-shirts, and onesies from June til the end of September. After that, pretty much just onesies.

On the other hand, you can never have too many burp cloths. It’s now my go-to baby shower gift.

50 cent ice cream cones are better than the $2.50 milkshakes Jon and I had to buy because Cook Out was on the way home from every doctor’s appointment.

Ooooh, milkshakes! 🙂 The medical bills are still a bit of a question mark. I have everything to the penny estimates from the insurance for a birth with no complications. And I know my out-of-pocket maximums. So that’s helping a lot. What I don’t know exactly is how and when they separate out what is billed for Mom and what is billed for Baby. But I am definitely glad I sat on the phone with them for a such a long time to get as many questions answered as possible, considering they’re all hypotheticals at this point!

And yes to onesies. We’ve returned a lot of the clothes that were newborn sizes. We’re trying to stick with mostly onesies and sleeper/crawlers and little gowns (I’ve heard they make nighttime diaper changes easier!). I’ll save the merchandise credits for when Baby gets bigger.

Hand-me-downs and having incredibly generous family and friends. People were very, very kind to us when we got married. But holy moly does everyone love a new baby! Someone I haven’t worked directly with in over two years sent over four outfits in the mail! What?! So, so kind!

I’ll also post a final update that includes medical costs and expenses for this last month. I’m thinking that it might be a lot less frugal. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m also bracing for it!

That’s great you’re keeping track of extra costs; if it can be measured, it can be improved. I was surprised about how much you spent on maternity gear. It seemed a bit high until I remembered how I spent the last couple months in one pair of jeans that fit- maybe I should have bought more pants 🙂

Another (good?) thing is you’ll probably wear your maternity clothes for a while after Half Penny is born. The over-the-belly pants were still so comfortable I wasn’t ready to go back to regular clothes for the first couple weeks.

Oh my gosh! I feel like I will never, ever get out of my maternity dress pants. They are too cute and comfortable. I remember kidding with my mom forever when she would try to buy pants that had a little elastic in the waistband. Now I see the error of my ways!

And yeah, it kind of is a lot, isn’t it? Thankfully, I tried to buy tank tops and even some dresses that I think I can wear pregnant or not. And $50 of it was a total splurge on new pajamas and a robe for the hospital. But I don’t think I’ll regret that either!

Maternity clothes are !@&&:!:&/ expensive. I had to buy a few things when we were traveling and an emergency pair of maternity jeans were $80!!! I didn’t have a choice, what with literally not fitting any of my pants overnight, and in Europe, so yeah, under $400 for a micro wardrobe sounds totally reasonable. But even going semi cheap, you’re buying a set of clothes to wear for several months, so you don’t necessarily want to go so cheap it all falls apart. My Target maternity shirts were super comfortable but looked like they’d been through combat after a few months which is a darn waste. Of course now I can’t bear to let go of some of my clothes that were gifts because they’re still pristine. Silly 🙂

I don’t think we actually need much other than onesies and some blankets, aside from diapers and wipes obviously, even though JB wa a winter baby. We didn’t even bother with hats and socks because ze loved the chilly wind and would chuckle every time a gust nearly blew us over. It’s nice if they can be low maintenance. Bonus if they can be low risk!

They are expensive! I paid way more for four pairs of pants than I thought I would have to, and I got them on sale. Thankfully, flowy tops and long, tunic-style tank tops are relatively in style now. I’ve been trying to buy as much from the regular departments as possible, just because they’re cheaper and/or go on sale!

And yes. Getting that news that everything ended up looking fine was a HUGE relief. I’m still anxious, of course, because they won’t know for sure until HP is here. But we feel incredibly fortunate.

At first the maternity gear surprised me, but when I look back, even with a TON of hand-me-downs, I think I spent around the same amount. That stuff is crazy expensive.

That’s so awesome that your family/friends helped out so much on the gear! I had a few that did that, but almost everyone wanted to get baby clothes. :p I ended up having to return some of them to get a car seat, and even still, wayyyy overspent what you did on that area. You’re one smart shopper!

I realize I should have included the number of maternity things I bought. That $387 includes probably 25-30 pieces. And I had a handful of formal events to attend, so I ended up having to shop a bit more than I planned. Plus, holy nursing bras, Batman. Why are they so expensive?!

It sounds like you’re doing pretty well so far on keeping expenses low. The cost of a pregnancy is pretty dependent on your health insurance plan. We knew that at least one baby was in the cards for this year, so we signed up for the GOLD high deductible plan. With all of the extra sonograms and appointments for twins, we easily hit the deductible – which we paid off from our HSA – before I even headed to the hospital. We’ve been getting all of these crazy, scary high “bills” for the c-section, hospital stay, NICU for both boys, etc. But thankfully they all say “patient responsibility is $0.”

Enjoy those milkshakes. In previous pregnancies I lived off of Shamrock shakes. This time around I wanted coconut cream pie . . . all the coconut cream pie 🙂

For carrying twins, you deserve all the pie in all the land! I cannot even imagine.

I think our final bill for Baby will be relatively low. Having that urgent care visit for myself helped us make progress on the co-insurance out-of-pocket maximum. But I’m sure you can relate. I’m not willing to totally breathe a sigh of relief until I have a happy and healthy baby in my arms.

As for the other sonogram photos. Let’s just say we were there for over an hour, and the kid had hands and arms (and feet and legs!) in front of its face nearly the entire time. I’m thinking we won’t be buying many picture packages when it comes to school photos if this is any indication!